My birthday present this year was a voucher to meet a cheetah at the National Museum and Aquarium. Have to book the encounters a bit in advance but the long range weather forecast for this weekend last weekend (I know what I mean :-) ) was good. As it turned out , the forecast was wrong , it wasn't sunny at all and a cold breeze was blowing. The Zoo has received a land grant or 2 from the ACT government so it really has expanded.
Krystyna and myself got there a few hours earlier. The Zoo does a good job in bringing to visitor's attention some of humankind's bad environmental practices. All of the glassed enclosures have signs up asking patrons not to tap on the glass yet dim witted parents watched on as their feral kids did just that. 15 minutes before my scheduled encounter time, I had a safety briefing and could watch the group before me go in. One of the guests looked really nervous and we could tell from the watching area things were not going smoothly.
When it was my turn, one of the keepers came out to explain that the cheetah was spooked and my encounter could not go ahead. I had the choice of rescheduling or going to another enclosure to meet a 10 month old cheetah cub "Solo" that was being raised with a rescue dog as it had been a single child and apparently cheetah mothers don't cope well with single children. I chose to meet Solo and what a good choice that turned out to be. There was purring, there was patting, the pup and the cub wrestled and the keepers took some really good shots with my camera. It was a fantastic experience.
After that, we retired to the new cafe to get some chippies - as it was late in the afternoon, they threw in all the calamari left over for free. As we made our way back toward the exit we were victims of a kidnapping episode, a young Malaysian girl much preferred our company to her parents - luckily, a diplomatic episode was averted. All up, an absolutely awesome (correct use of the word) day !
Krystyna and myself got there a few hours earlier. The Zoo does a good job in bringing to visitor's attention some of humankind's bad environmental practices. All of the glassed enclosures have signs up asking patrons not to tap on the glass yet dim witted parents watched on as their feral kids did just that. 15 minutes before my scheduled encounter time, I had a safety briefing and could watch the group before me go in. One of the guests looked really nervous and we could tell from the watching area things were not going smoothly.
When it was my turn, one of the keepers came out to explain that the cheetah was spooked and my encounter could not go ahead. I had the choice of rescheduling or going to another enclosure to meet a 10 month old cheetah cub "Solo" that was being raised with a rescue dog as it had been a single child and apparently cheetah mothers don't cope well with single children. I chose to meet Solo and what a good choice that turned out to be. There was purring, there was patting, the pup and the cub wrestled and the keepers took some really good shots with my camera. It was a fantastic experience.
After that, we retired to the new cafe to get some chippies - as it was late in the afternoon, they threw in all the calamari left over for free. As we made our way back toward the exit we were victims of a kidnapping episode, a young Malaysian girl much preferred our company to her parents - luckily, a diplomatic episode was averted. All up, an absolutely awesome (correct use of the word) day !
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